MASSACHUSETTS MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART (MASS MOCA) – NORTH ADAMS, MA1989-1999 (BRUNER COTT)

In 1986 as director of the Williams College Museum of Art, Thomas Krens first conceived of converting the recently closed Sprague Electric, Marshall Street plant in North Adams, Massachusetts, into the world's largest contemporary art museum.

Krens soon met with then North Adams mayor John Barrett III to propose converting the twenty-eight vacant industrial buildings of Sprague Electric Marshall Street Complex. On May 5th, 1987, North Adams and Williams College announced they would seek $35 million from Massachusetts Civic and Convention Center program to renovate the complex into a contemporary art museum. Despite a 11,000-signature local petition for MASS MoCA being sent to the Massachusetts State House, the Convention Center funding bill died in the Legislature.

The project was accompanied by Joseph C. Thompson and Michael Govan—Krens’ former students and then employees of the WCMA that . Thompson and Govan were brought to help gather statistics and do feasibility studies for the impacts that MASS MoCA can bring to North Adams and Massachusetts. Their combined perseverance and salesmanship persuaded former Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis to award the museum a grant of $35 million.

The project found its finances when the Massachusetts Legislature voted on Krens’ vision, passing a $35 million bond issue to finance half the cost; the other half raised privately. On May 25th, 1988, Krens was named chairman of the Mass MoCA Cultural Commission appointed by Barrett and North Adams City Council. The Commission soon appointed Joseph C. Thompson as the founding director of MASS MoCA on August 2nd, 1988.

On December 9th, 1990, Krens resigned from the MASS MoCA Cultural Commission.

Krens's conception came to fruition when MASS MoCA opened in 1999 with one of the first presentations of Robert Rauschenberg’s “Quarter Mile Piece,” as the world’s largest museum of contemporary art that would present contemporary visual art, changing exhibitions, and performing arts events.